Peru -- Primarily Machu Picchu (Dec 2010)

This is large (immense!) area a short distance outside the city. It is called a fortress, but probably had a religious puirpose too.

The pronouncation is something very close to the English phrase "sexy woman". As you go from place to place as a tourist in Cuzco, one local or another will try to tell you about the "sexy woman" thing about once per hour.

As I went through the photos I had sorted out some months ago for eventual display, I realized I had picked only one photo of this place -- this one. I will probably add a couple more before putting this gallery up on the web. However, I suspect I don't have one that comes close to capturing how huge it is (or how huge some of these individual stone blocks are).

They know where these stones were quarried. If I remember correctly, most of them -- including the largest ones -- were brought from about 3-5 miles away (traces of the road are still visible). They were brought by human power. The Inca civilization (and the pre-Incas and all of the pre-Columbian civilizations) did not use wheeled transport vehicles and had no draft animals larger than a llama. Apparently, the maximum load a llama can carry is somewhat less than the load a man or woman can carry.

As I said before, this place is just outside Cuzco. I believe here (unlike Machu Picchu) many of the original stones were moved for use in construction in the city after the Spanish arrived.